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LAHAINA-Friday
night in Long Beach, Carolina had a learning experience, and it was all
chuckles and grins because the Tar Heels emerged with a win.

Tuesday
afternoon against Butler, Carolina had a learning experience, and it was about
as much fun as a rainy day in Maui. The Bulldogs were tougher, more aggressive
and hit bigger shots in an 82-71 win that was nowhere near that close for most
of the game.

In the
final 10 minutes, the Tar Heels made it interesting. They trimmed 22 points off
the lead in a 10:16 stretch, an impressive burst. "When you're playing a
program like Carolina, you know it's coming," Butler head coach Brad Stevens
said.

When you're
playing a program like Butler, though, you know that intensity is coming. And
for the first 30 minutes of Tuesday's game, Carolina didn't look especially
ready to counter that ferocity. In many ways, it was reminiscent of the
November 2006 game against unranked Gonzaga, when a young Tar Heel team that
was feeling pretty good about itself looked stunned by the way the 'Zags came
out committed to maximizing every possession on offense and defense.

This time,
against the same type of opponent, Butler had a 15-0 lead in second chance
points early in the second half, because they dominated the glass. The Tar Heels
didn't shoot a free throw in the first half (after shooting just nine against
Mississippi State).

"We talked about it in the pregame that they're going to play really
hard," Roy Williams said. "Let's make sure
that we match that toughness, and we didn't match that toughness. That's my job as a coach to make sure that I
get us to that level."

The head
coach saw warning signs early: Williams stormed out of the very first UNC
huddle of the game, when Carolina trailed 10-2 and had already been
outrebounded 9-2. Butler's final rebounding edge would eventually be 39-29.

The
struggles in the paint were epitomized by James Michael McAdoo, who had the
game every eventual big-time player has to have on the road to being big-time.
He finished with 10 points, four rebounds, seven turnovers and multiple
occasions on which he appeared irritated with the physical nature of the play
under and around the basket.

Somewhere,
Tyler Zeller, Tyler Hansbrough and Sean May were nodding knowingly. That type
of play is going to happen. Carolina wants to feed its big men, and opponents
know the Tar Heels want to generate offense near the basket. It's never going
to be especially easy under there, and Tuesday Butler--a program that thrives in
these types of games, which is a credit to their coach--made it difficult from
the very beginning. Kameron Woods played some tone-setting defense on McAdoo
early, working hard to push the big man away from the basket and frustrating
him with his aggressive play. McAdoo never really got back into the flow of the
game, and the Carolina offense looked rudderless without him.

The
sophomore learned an enduring truth on Tuesday: you don't just become the go-to
guy because everyone else leaves. You become the go-to guy because you earn it,
and part of earning it is enduring--and then recovering from--outings like
Tuesday. Remember, it was approximately ten months ago that everyone was
mumbling that McAdoo wasn't aggressive enough. Sure, he eventually exploded in
the final month of the season, but the game against Butler--a program that
started three seniors and a junior--was just the fifth game McAdoo has played in
the last two years when his name was the primary one highlighted on the
opposing scouting report.

His
struggles against the Bulldogs don't mean he's incapable of being Carolina's
centerpiece this year. It just means it's a process, not a coronation.

There's
been plenty of talk about the Tar Heel freshmen learning how to play at the
college level. But there are two very different kinds of leaps being experienced right now in Chapel Hill. There's the step from high school to college basketball, one that deals primarily with speed of the game and quality of opponents. And then there's the even bigger step from being simply a college player to being a go-to college player, which deals with intensity and expectations and all those intangibles you can't drill in the summertime. McAdoo, one of the most thoughtful players of the Williams era, realizes it. He
didn't need to look at film to see what went wrong. Within 20 minutes of the
final buzzer, he already had an insightful take on the game.

"They
played great defense," he said of Butler. "They did a great job of getting me
uncomfortable. That really showed in my performance today. I should never let
another team dictate how I play. So I have to use this as a learning
experience."

Those words
were exactly right. It was more than just blaming lack of heart or saying the
other team wanted it more. It was McAdoo identifying a problem, taking
responsibility for the impact it had on him personally and expressing a need to
correct the problem.

McAdoo
could have been speaking for the entire team. Which, in many ways, is exactly
the role the Tar Heels are asking him to grow into.